The Nation's Favourite Musical Theatre Songs Revealed

A new study has revealed that the most popular song from a musical in the UK is SIX from the West End hit SIX.

The study by theatre ticket site SeatPlan used search volume data from Google Keyword Planner to identify the most searched-for songs from musicals to identify the nation's most popular musical songs.

The final song, SIX from the famous British musical of the same name was revealed as the most searched song on Google; on average, it was revealed that avid music fans search for the song 23K times a month per 100,000 residents. On Spotify, the song SIX has been played over 55 million times since its release.

The study also revealed that the famous song Popular from Stephen Schwartz's musical Wicked was the second most popular song; on average, Brits search 11K times a month for the song per 100,000 residents.

Defying Gravity, another song from Wicked, was revealed as the nation's third most popular musical song. Fans of the musical search for the song 8.2K times a month on average per 100,000 residents. The research revealed that the song Popular has been played 71 million times on Spotify however, Defying Gravity is far more popular, with over 141 million streams on the platform.

Surprisingly, the fourth most popular musical song was revealed as Say My Name from BEETLEJUICE, a musical that still hasn’t reached the West End. Originally, BEETLEJUICE was meant to open in the West End in 2020, but due to the pandemic, the show was cancelled. However, this hasn’t stopped the fans of the show from searching for the song on average 7K a month per 100,000 residents.

The study revealed that the fifth most searched song is One Last Time from the hit musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda. On average, fans search 1.3k times per month per 100,000 residents. The study revealed that 40% of the top ten most popular musical songs were featured in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hit Hamilton. Therefore, showcasing the fans unwavering love of the musical almost ten years after its Broadway release in April 2015.

One Last Time has been played over 100 million times on Spotify staggeringly, the total plays for all the songs in the Hamilton musical are over 6.2 billion.

The top ten most popular musical songs in the UK

Rank	Musical	Song	Average number of searches per 100,000 residents
1	SIX	SIX	23,022
2	Wicked	Popular	11,022
3	Wicked	Defying Gravity	8,288
4	BEETLEJUICE	Say My Name	7,045
5	Hamilton	One Last Time	1,300
6	Hamilton	Alexander Hamilton	1,288
7	SIX	Heart of Stone	1,058
8	SIX	No Way	777
9	Hamilton	My Shot	742
10	Hamilton	Burn	732

A spokesperson from SeatPlan commented on the findings, saying:
“Those who are looking for a musical playlist to enjoy should consider these popular musical songs, as they clearly strike a chord with feel-good fans.

“This list clearly shows the nation's three favourite musicals are SIX, Wicked and Hamilton. However, with the release of the Wicked film set to hit the UK cinemas later this year, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, it will be interesting to see if more Wicked songs creep their way into the top ten.”